Building a culture of safety through team training and engagement

Abstract

Medical errors continue to occur despite multiple strategies devised for their prevention. Although many safety initiatives lead to improvement, they are often short lived and unsustainable. Our goal was to build a culture of patient safety within a structure that optimised teamwork and ongoing engagement of the healthcare team. Teamwork impacts the effectiveness of care, patient safety and clinical outcomes, and team training has been identified as a strategy for enhancing teamwork, reducing medical errors and building a culture of safety in healthcare. Therefore, we implemented Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), an evidence-based framework which was used for team training to create transformational and/or incremental changes; facilitating transformation of organisational culture, or solving specific problems. To date, TeamSTEPPS (TS) has been implemented in 14 hospitals, two Long Term Care Facilities, and outpatient areas across the North Shore LIJ Health System. 32 150 members of the healthcare team have been trained. TeamSTEPPS was piloted at a community hospital within the framework of the health system's organisational care delivery model, the Collaborative Care Model to facilitate sustainment. AHRQ's Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture, (HSOPSC), was administered before and after implementation of TeamSTEPPS, comparing the perception of patient safety by the heathcare team. Pilot hospital results of HSOPSC show significant improvement from 2007 (pre-TeamSTEPPS) to 2010. System-wide results of HSOPSC show similar trends to those seen in the pilot hospital. Valuable lessons for organisational success from the pilot hospital enabled rapid spread of TeamSTEPPS across the rest of the health system.

The expanding role of primary care in cancer control

“…A large body of published work showed the success of such training in achieving improved skills and reduced errors in such varied settings as neonatal units, long-term care facilities, and general hospitals, and with student health-care professionals. [334][335][336] The application of teambased education for the care of patients with cancer in primary care is a promising approach that builds on the increasingly interprofessional make-up of primary care services in many countries.…”

Atitudes profissionais para cultura de segurança do paciente em unidade de transplante de medula óssea

“…The Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) of the AHRQ was applied before and after programme implementation to compare the perceptions of the staff on patient safety. The results showed significant improvements (17) . Another study conducted TeamSTEPPS training with 306 students of medicine, nursing, pharmacy and medical assistants.…”

“…The Department of Defense Patient Safety Program in collaboration with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (ARHQ) created the programme Team Strategies and Tools to Enhance Performance and Patient Safety (TeamSTEPPS), which is a system of teamwork based on evidence to improve the communication and teamwork skills of health professionals (17)(18) . Studies have been conducted using this programme to ascertain its eff ectiveness and benefi ts for patient safety.…”

Global health care leadership development: trends to consider

“…Research with TeamSTEPPS has demonstrated its effectiveness in developing and maintaining superior team performance and effectiveness in diverse health care settings. 74,75 Global mindset refers to how we think about globalization. At the individual level, global mindset refers to an individual leader's comfort with multiple cultural influences.…”